Life Begins in Thousand Oaks

As I return back to my history, we had just moved to Thousand Oaks, California. The community at this time was relatively small, about thirty-five thousand. We liked that. The house we rented was older, but quite adequate for our family. I only wished it had had a family room ... then it would have been perfect. Well maybe not quite perfect because I really hated trying to keep that antiquated asphalt tile in the kitchen clean and shiny. It required a lot of scrubbing, waxing, stripping, and then more scrubbing, and waxing. It was a pain.

We liked the schools, and the ward where we attended church. There were only two wards there in the Conejo Valley (the valley where Thousand Oaks was located) and our stake center was in Simi Valley, over the hill. The first calling in the ward that I received was a teacher of the Guide Patrol which were the eleven-year-old boys in Primary. They were actually out of Cubs and in the regular scouting program once they turned eleven. However, the regular scouting program was under the direction of the Young Men's organization, and boy didn't graduate into that program until they were twelve. So they remained under the direction of the Primary. This was different from what the local councils and scout executives were used to, and they never quite understood what the "Mormon" church was doing to the scouting program. So I not only taught scouting skills but, but the teachings of the Articles of Faith which the boys had to memorize before they graduated. At that time Primary was held on a week day and was longer in length than it is now, so I was able to get it all in. This was my first exposure to the scouting program, and I loved it. Just a short time later I was also called to teach the "Theology" lesson once a month in Relief Society. Relief Society was also held on a weekday at that time.

Shortly after we moved to Thousand Oaks I became acquainted with a young sister who had recently given birth to a baby girl. She was a school teacher by profession and was anxious to get back to work, but needed day care for the baby. She asked if I would consider it, and I accepted. I figured a little extra spending money couldn't hurt, and it had been over three years since I had the fun of a new baby in the house. Jon was the only one home during the day as all the other children were in school. So he became my "big helper". Oh, how he loved that baby!

Every day he would cry when the mom came to pick her up. It was at one of these frustrating moments that he turned to me and asked me a question ... a question that not only took me by complete surprise, but one that I didn't know how to answer. I needed help.